Norfolk or Spanish Black – the turkey Columbus brought back to Europe, probably, more or less….

“The Turkie, which is in New England a very large Bird, they breed twice or thrice in a year, if you would preserve the young chickens alive, you must give them no water, for if they come to have their fill of water they will drop away strangely, and you will never be able to rear any of them: they are excellent meat, especially a Turkey-Capon beyond that, for which eight shillings was given, their eggs are very wholesome and restore decayed nature exceedingly. But the French say they breed the leprosie, the Indesses make Coats of Turkie feathers woven for their children.”

In 1605, Guy Fawkes (the one who’s name became attached to the event) and others were found with gunpowder in the House of Parliament and seemed to be trying to blow up King and Parliament. This lead to

The Observance of 5th November Act 1605 (3 Ja. I, c. 1,) also known as the “Thanksgiving Act“

The Bill was drafted and introduced on 23 January 1605/06 by Edward Montagu. It called for a public, annual thanksgiving for the failure of the Plot.

That ‘s right – November 5th was a Thanksgiving Day in 1606, which is years before 1621…. 1621 isn’t quite as First as it sometimes thinks it is. Just sayin’.

Guy Fawkes got a whole new life in the movies.

and thus begins a new life for the Guy – as the Mask

The Guy Fawkes Mask – this one as origami

Since bonfires are the constant celebration of this day of Thanksgiving

Bonfire in England for 5th of November

the foods most associated with this holiday are bonfire toffee and jacket potatoes.

Jacket potatoes?

Mr Potato Head as Indiana Jones with a JACKET

But really, Jacket Potatoes are baked (the bonfire connection) with the skins still on….

These three lovely meals in a spud were feature in the New York Times recently

Not only are they first in our current calendar, what with October being before November, but they are also first in when they trace their holiday roots.

Yes, they harken their first Thanksgiving back to 1576 ( Martin Frobisher at Baffin Island) and/ or 1606 (Samuel Champlain and the Order of Good Cheer). Sorry, Berkeley Plantation – both of these dates are before 1619. Still not the first.

A rendition of the Order of Good Cheer

And the Canadians also invented American football…

The double double is a Tim Horton’s reference. Tim Horton’s who will now be coming to the US.

I admit, when I saw the headline in the Dining Section of last Wednesday’s New York Times, I thought it was about playing with your food….

but not quite. Sometimes, you have to read the whole headline.

The actual headline: The Rise of Craft Popcorn. And it’s a very interesting story, about small farmers bringing back specialty popcorns, which now must be craft, no doubt because the term artisan has been so overused as to be meaningless.

For one thing, I learned that popcorn

Popcorn kernels -Zea mays everta

is more closely related to flint corn then I thought before…

Flint corn or Zea mays indurata – popcorn may actually be a variety of flint corn

Which is just in time for Pilgrim and popcorn stories. And Thanksgiving and Turkey stories.

They’re just not true – whether or not flint corn can beget popcorn or not – because no one in the 17th (or 18th) century mentions them. Most of them began in the 19th century which is 200 years too late to be timely, but they’re interesting.

John Howland pondering popcorn at the first Thanksgiving – from a scene from a 19th century novel Standish of Standish

Jane Goodwin Austin’s Standish of Standish has this scenes – in 1889.

Jane Goodwin Austin, not to be confused with Jane Austen, the Pride and Prejudice author. Please.

There was no photograph attached, but he was clearly writing about chicken. An image of the dish was instantly in my mind: the burnished brown of the skin peeking out of a sauce the color of goldenrod, with flecks of green from the tarragon and bright red from the wilted tomatoes. Such is the power of a great recipe in whatever form. The dish seemed obviously cookable. Better yet, it was deeply appetizing. I made it for the family right away.”

Sam Sifton also wrote a book on Thanksgiving, a great primer for the day’s cooking

Sifton goes on to say how he knows it’s chicken and how he cooks it and cooks it again, and that the twitter has the essence of the recipe.

Chicken, shallots,

Shallots

tarragon

tarragon

and cherry tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

The photo to the NY Times article

Now, if Sifton didn’t know from chicken or tarragon or cherry tomatoes….this might not have been the image he would have conjured up. But since he had an image and an impression of the dish, he knew how to cook it. So much of cooking is memory.

So much the same for cooks of the past. Just a few words could conjure up an image, and then they’d know what to do, if they even want to do this at all.

In the 17th century they didn’t have Twitter, but some of their recipes are succinct enough for the form. And the spelling is totally creative.

Parboyl them with beaten Parsley and Butter in their Bellies, then put them into your Boyler with strong Broth, add a blade of Mace, and some gross pepper, with half a pint of white-wine, grate a little bread into the broth to whitten the Fowl; and so serve them up with the Gravy and a dissolved Anchovy, Garnish’d with Parsly and Violets, or their leaves.

The Whole Duty of a Woman: Or a Guide to the Female Sex, 1696

This is a recipe for………

Pigeons or any small Fowl to Boyl.

It would work equally well with chicken. Not too far from the the first recipe either – bird, wine, herb.

Why, pray tell is there a Victorian Bobble-head here? What has THIS got to do with Thanksgiving?

This is Sarah Josepha Hale, the godmother of the American holiday of Thanksgiving, so honored and remembered in Bobble form.

Sarah in portrait, decades before The Bobble was even a thought

2013 was the 150 anniversary of the holiday, and this woman had worked tirelessly for decades to have the day made into a National Holiday.

A Letter (one of many) that she wrote to Abraham Lincoln to have Thanksgiving, a New England tradition, made into a a National Holiday

So when we gather together in November, we should add Sarah to the things we are thankful that day. And olives. We must be thankful for olives that can be carried to our mouths on the tips of our fingers, and perhaps use them as bobblehead finger puppets. And playing with our food, we should always be thankful for food to play with.

Thank You Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving by by Laurie Halse Anderson